Fort Carson unit to ship out after weeks of delay

FORT CARSON – Soldiers from one of the Army’s most lethal heavy divisions began shipping out for the Middle East on Thursday, the first of thousands expected to help open a northern front in Iraq in the coming weeks.

The 4th Infantry Division received deployment orders in January, but was delayed by Turkey’s refusal to allow ground troops to enter Iraq from the north.

At Fort Carson near Colorado Springs and at Fort Hood near Waco, Texas, frustration from weeks of waiting dissolved into excitement with the news they would soon leave for Iraq.

Maj. Darron Wright, who said he has trained for combat for 16 years, said the soldiers want to help.

“Nobody mongers for war, but when it happens, you want to go out and test your skills,” he said as Fort Carson troops lobbed practice grenades toward torso-shaped targets. “You have brothers in arms fighting there. You want to be there to share that experience.”

If the division sees combat, it will be the first time since Vietnam.

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There are about 12,500 soldiers from the 4th Infantry at Fort Hood and nearly 4,000 soldiers from the division’s 3rd Brigade at Fort Carson.

More than 20,000 troops from 10 other installations comprise Task Force Ironhorse.

In Colorado, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team was told it would leave within the next two weeks. Another 5,200 members of the division’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are expected to depart shortly.

“It’s like we made the football team and made the varsity, but we’re riding the bench,” said Spc. Jason Wood of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

There was a similar feeling at Fort Hood as family members attended a long-awaited send-off ceremony for the first major deployment from the nation’s largest military post. Officials said an advance group, believed to be 400 to 500 troops, shipped out Thursday morning.

The schedule for deploying troops from the division is fluid, as officials coordinate their arrival with equipment sent on ships to the Mediterranean Sea. The ships recently were diverted through the Suez Canal en route to Kuwait, 3rd Brigade Combat Team spokesman Capt. Kory Brendsel said.

Wood, 28, who works in maintenance and logistics, said troops have used the extra time to adapt drills to developments from the war. But he took time Wednesday to celebrate his son Nicholas’ third birthday.

“Oh my God, I cry every single day,” said Wood’s wife, Marjorie, 25. “I can live with him being deployed, he’s been gone before (for training). The thing I can’t handle is not knowing how long he’s going to be gone for.”

Spc. Daniel Schwartz, 22, said the additional training has helped keep the soldiers’ minds off their families. About five weeks ago, his wife Jacqueline moved back to her hometown of Clarkston, Wash., about 55 miles east of his hometown of Kooskia, Idaho. They talk by phone twice a day.

“When I get there it probably will be a while until we can talk,” he said.